Los Angeles Mayor
Rep. Karen Bass, right, speaks as developer Rick Caruso listens during the Los Angeles mayoral debate at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Congresswoman Karen Bass and mall developer Rick Caruso, the two candidates running to be the next mayor of Los Angeles, squared off in a televised debate Wednesday night. The evening saw the two alternate between marginal disagreements on policy proposals and pre-planned attacks on each other’s record. …

Caruso has pledged to hire 1,500 more LAPD officers, and to ban street encampments. Bass, while sounding more moderate on crime and more empathetic about homelessness, also wants to hire more police officers — though only about 300 — and also wants to ban street encampments, though she wants to do so in a less heavy-handed way that relies more on social workers than law enforcement.

“You can’t criminalize poverty,” she said.

A moment from a previous debate came back to haunt Bass. During the primary campaign, Bass was asked to rate her own personal safety on a scale of 1 to 10. She said it was a “10.” After the recent break-in at her home, she said it was now a “5.”

Caruso seemed to blame Bass for the theft of her firearms, saying, “There are two guns on the street now. And we have terrible gun violence in the city of Los Angeles now.”

— Hillel Aron in Mayoral Candidates Bass and Caruso Trade Barbs on USC, Stolen Guns, Scientology and Abortion

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62 COMMENTS

  1. Nice, for some values of nice, to see the Dems own talking points thrown back at them.

    And, yes, you can criminalize poverty. But that’s not her opponent is proposing. He’s suggesting (re)criminalizing vagrancy.

    • I’ve no issue with vagrants who clean up after themselves and don’t cause trouble.

      But Demwit policies never seem to attract those kind, do they.

    • “And, yes, you can criminalize poverty.”

      ?

      Done away with in America after the Social Security system was instigated in the 1930s. Poor farms, poor houses, etc. Britain was infamous for theirs. (“Please, sir, may I have some more?” Oliver Twist)…

      • Exactly – it’s not that you can’t criminalize poverty. It’s been done. Her statement is factually false in her assertion, and it is also not addressing what her opponent is proposing.

      • And that really solved the problem? Much like closing all the mental health hospitals and turning the patients out on the streets cured mental illness.

        I used to do volunteer returns for CA’s Renter’s and Homeowners Assistance program. It was a program designed to return some of the high real estate property taxes to low income folks which program has fallen by the wayside during the dim’s possession of the capitol.

        I was always amazed at how many elderly women were living in a beachside SoCal town with incredulously high rentals on less than $500 a month. I couldn’t understand how they were doing it. Their husbands had worked in the late 40s and 50s when wages were low and retired upon reaching 65 and perhaps died a few years later and their widows were living on social security based on 50s wages. The miserly raises SSI grants each year and takes away with MediCare premium increases doesn’t nearly cover the roaring inflation of the 70s and won’t cover the roaring inflation that we are experiencing now. The $245 maximum benefit was a real boost for them. Would they be better in a state run home? Well, yes, a well run state home but certainly not the workhouses of Dickens’ time.

        Presently in LA, the housing that LA is building for the homeless is costing more than $1 million per unit in an apartment style house. Of course it must have a/c; it must have dishwashers. It must have washers and dryers and be wired for the internet and cable TV. All more up to date than my 50+ year old house. Kinda reminds me of San Diego. The Navy base closed some base housing units for military personnel and offered them to the City of San Diego for housing the “homeless”. The city indignantly rejected the housing as not fit for housing the homeless. It was okay for our service personnel but not good enough for a bum on the street living under a blue tarp. Better he or she should live in a cardboard box or under a blue tarp than in base housing that wasn’t a/c’d; didn’t have built-ins and no forced air heating but wall units.

  2. ““You can’t criminalize poverty,” {Bass} said.”

    I’ve been around some extremely impoverished people at various times in my life, and the strange thing is, they would never consider blatant retail theft and openly shitting on downtown city sidewalks as normal behavior.

    You criminalize criminal *behavior*, not income level, dumbass… 🙁

    • I just can’t wrap my head around the mindset that makes up the political Left…

      • “You can’t criminalize poverty,” [Bass] said.

        I scrolled down to comment on that very statement. You beat me to it, but I was going to say “yes, but you can criminalize public intoxication, drug use, defecation, threats of violence against passersby, theft, prostitution, the commandeering of public walkways, et al…”

        • They think they are being ‘kind’, by not prosecuting such behaviors, but they are not. It’s cruelty. It’s cruel to the individuals (bad enough), and cruel to the community in general (literal disease from human waste).

          “We care *so much* about you, we are just going to watch you as you turn from a human into an animal” is what I see.

          Tough love is a real thing… 🙁

      • Geoff,

        Well, if you ever START to get your head wrapped around the Leftist/fascist mindset . . . U R doin’ it wrong. Leftist/fascists don’t use actual thought, logic, knowledge, or evidence. They have abandoned their search for “Truth”, and are now seeking a good fantasy. And their politicians are happy to oblige them.

        • Geoff “I’m getting too old.”

          LA City has had to pay several worker’s comp claims for typhus from the fleas from the rats from skid row just down the street from city hall.

    • Geoff……………….,

      I have a lot of relatives (more than I would like to admit) who hear phrases like “You cannot criminalize poverty”, nod their heads, and emblazone that bumper sticker in their heads as if it were an actual thought. The bumper sticker apparently seals off that area of the brain responsible for critical thinking. “Well, I have a ready answer for that problem, no need to spend any more time and energy on it.”

      Bumper stickers are right up their with duct tape as some of the most powerful forces in the universe.

      Eventually, though, truth wins….but usually after a hideously high body count.

      • “The bumper sticker apparently seals off that area of the brain responsible for critical thinking.”

        Well put.

        People with social/political/religious bumper stickers plastered all over tend to be shallower than a backyard kiddie pool. Sages Unite!

      • “Eventually, though, truth wins….but usually after a hideously high body count.”

        Not with that crowd. They are literally getting hard or wet at the prospect of societal collapse… 🙁

    • Poverty is about getting through life with little to nothing in the way of resources. Certain behaviors are simply not about poverty. Public deification is between blatant disrespect and mental issues.

      Many people just cannot understand the idea that a large portion of the homeless actually do choose to be that way. There are many that simply do not have the mental capacity to handle living in society. There used to be options for them but most of that has been takin away. It’s sad and scary. Some of them need medical attention but have no one to tell them they do. It makes them vulnerable to drug use.

      Living in these encampments has to be like living in a mental institution.

        • Many are like that. But places like this encourage drug use as a government policy so ending up this way is inevitable. Many of them were born mentally handicapped (what used to be referred to as mental retardation). There are people that will need supervision for as long as they live. What happens to them when there is no one left? This used to be dealt with in a more humane way.

        • “This used to be dealt with in a more humane way.”

          Family used to take care of family. There isn’t one simple cause for the social problems we’re experiencing today. However the root cause for many can be traced back to 60s era second wave feminism and everything that resulted from that.

          Ultra expensive housing, declining job opportunities and self-worth, the destruction of societal norms and taboos, and an out of touch government that is more interested in not offending drug addicts (and criminals, and pedophiles, etc.) than discouraging harmful behavior only adds fuel to the fire.

      • “Many people just cannot understand the idea that a large portion of the homeless actually do choose to be that way.”

        I believe San Fransisco pays the homeless a stipend of something like 600 dollars a month, *in cash*, which I’m sure gets them high for 3 or 4 days.

        For a non-drugged out poor person, that could feed a family of 4 for a month…

        • It’s infuriating. We don’t have to live like this. Like I said below, nothing will change until they ditch the Progressives.

      • It used to be one could do handiwork around a household for room and board. Can’t do that any more. Have to have worker’s compensation insurance coverage even for the day laborer you hire at Home Depot’s parking lot. If you don’t have it, you are exposing yourself to horrific liability. that’s why you don’t see kids cutting lawns anymore because you have to be covered for workers comp if you do — at least in CA and I suppose other ultra liberal states too.

        The services used to have career privates and Pfcs. When I was in back in the Old Corps, I knew several career privates. They liked the security of the service life and didn’t want the responsibility of being an NCO and so managed a minor infraction that got them busted if they unwillingly got promoted. Not any more. It is up or out in the service these days. That started way back in the late 50s. By the time I was ready to get out from active duty in 1959, that policy had already started. An acquaintance of mine recently lost his job after 14 years. The reason? He was content to just do his job and not advance. The company has a policy of, you guessed it, up and out. After 14 years without trying to advance he was cut loose. The company told him it was realignment but as soon as I checked their website I knew exactly why he was let go after an unblemished but undistinguished 14 years of faithful service.

        There are lots of people who in earlier years would be employable but due to the ever increasing demands of technology have been left behind. It is a sociological problem that is an extremely tough nut to crack. People used to work as unskilled farm labor, pitching hay, tending to livestock. Today, one man can care for 10,000 chickens but he needs to have advanced computer skills. If you dropped out of high school because it was too tough that leaves you really hurting for a meaningful job in today’s market and the schools are not interested in addressing the problem. they would rather be politically correct. Some of the carp (misspelled deliberately) going on in schools curls what little hair I have left.

  3. Voters in LA will get what they vote for. And Karen Bass will give them a rotten fish. A whole lake full of rotten fish. (Have you ever smelled a lake after a fish kill? LA residents will be very familiar with that smell if they elect her.)

    Gooder and harder. Gooder and harder.

    • “(Have you ever smelled a lake after a fish kill? LA residents will be very familiar with that smell if they elect her.)”

      The ocean when a red tide hits… 🙁

    • I wonder if the voting results in Kommiefornia falls under the rule ” it’s not how the people vote but who counts the votes ” ?

      • Yes. See the recent recall effort (this year) for the district attorney. The “vote counters” found 30% of the petition signatures to be invalid. That put them below the threshold for the recall effort. Oddly enough, the 2020 election saw less than 1% of mail in ballots being rejected in LA County. Move along, nothing to see…

    • if they cannot learn from their current mayor’s messes, they deserve whtatever messes the new mayor, same as the old mayor will bring them.

  4. Armed Teen Thwarts Home Invasion With Shotgun, Killing 2 Of 3 Armed Intruders > https://concealednation.org/2022/09/armed-teen-thwarts-home-invasion-with-shotgun-killing-2-of-3-armed-intruders/

    New York Homeowners Fight Back Against Home Invaders With Their Own Guns > https://concealednation.org/2022/09/new-york-homeowners-fight-back-against-home-invaders-with-their-own-guns/

    Shocking Video Shows Armed Robber Not Giving A Second Thought To Murdering Store Employee > https://concealednation.org/2022/09/shocking-video-shows-armed-robber-not-giving-a-second-thought-to-murdering-store-employee/

    (https://youtu.be/VZErTGLCdRI)

    (Its too bad the employee didn’t have a firearm, opportunities for successful DGU was there. At least with a firearm deployed his chances of survival would have been better by about 94%, as it happened though he had no chance at all. This happened in Tupelo Mississippi.)

  5. Lets see, she felt safe with her guns but only half as safe no without her guns but wants the rest of us to never feel safe by her trying to remove our guns.

    Its a really screwed up sense of values and thought process there; An avowed anti-gun person owning guns to be safe by being prepared for defense that wants the rest of us to not be prepared and be victims by her trying to take away our guns. Lets see…. whats the word i’m looking for… hypocrite, that’s the word.

    • They lie about, or at a minimum obfuscate, everything. They have to. Most Democrats don’t even support the extreme positions held by their current leaders. That includes flooding the country with illegals and abortion up until and after birth. The media mirage makes it seem as if this is supported, but it has never been supported by the vast majority of the country, including Democrats. In other news, propaganda still works.

    • I wonder what she will buy for replacements. We should reach out to her, she might need advice on what best suits — ah, who am I kidding? The entire event is likely a sham, meant to move the commie-crats toward the center pre-midterms…

  6. The choice is between slim and none. None is the anti gun buffoon who cannot keep tabs on her guns. Slim at least knows where to find the 2x4s at Home Depot.

  8. Accually you can outlaw homelessness. It used to be called vagrancy. there were laws against vagrancy. Used to be able to write them a ticket, usually followed by driving them to the city limit and kicking them out. These are not homeless, they are Bums, plain and simple. They chose thier lifestyle and are parasites on the rest of us.

    • they ARE NOT’homeless” they have made the shitty streets of LA their “home”.
      But even a dog won’t soil its own home. WHich makes these things less than dogs, by THEIR choice.

  9. Saying we can’t criminalize poverty as an excuse to do nothing shows a great lack of understanding.

    These encampments are not simply poor people down on their luck. Their largely sick with addiction and/mental and emotional disabilities.
    They will always be in a state of poverty for inability to live a stable life complete with employment and self care. No amount of pandering to the minimum wage or anti-work Reddit crowd will change this. These people need 24/7 supervision and assisted living. They cannot hold a job. They cannot maintain relationships. They cannot feed, clothe or bathe themselves. Leaving them be to tent up and shit all over themselves is cruel. I thought the left disdained cruelty and embraced compassion? What they’re doing now is genocide lite. They’re too cowardly to round them up and actively exterminate them so they leave them to die in the streets. Either put the sick dog down or bring it in and care for it. Only a monster would let it keep wandering sick out in the world.

    And you gotta love the impulse to let them be “free” while effectively telling the taxpayers and, to use a WEF term, stakeholders in the city “screw you.” Any nation, municipality or village should be focused on the people with skin in the game. Otherwise the whole scheme becomes one big encampment of uncared for patients.

    • THEIR answer is for someone to look after those people, but not themselves directly.

      They are big on ideas and short on real action. Much like a certain grinning idiot.

  10. Here’s a crazy idea: why don’t they focus on why there are so many homeless people there to begin with? Then they could focus on solutions to said problem. But they won’t do that because it would be contrary to Progressive ideology. In other words, these problems are their fault. It won’t get better until L.A. ditches the Progressives.

    • their goal is to have MOST of us as crazy and worthless as these street homeless. Whilst THEY live in luxury and comfort, safe and secure and well fed in their own assyla……..

  12. Maybe the homeless situation is what the ruling class marxists have in mind for the present working class. Think about it.

    • They want us to live in stacked pods and eat fake meat. They’ll probably let us have indoor plumbing, but they won’t let us control the thermostat.

        • Basically, East Germany in the Mid-1980s just before collapse and reunification with the West, however,…….

          Germany today is on the verge of a 1929 Level Great Depression because of Inflation and the Energy Crisis due to Russian Sanctions.

      • Not likely they will make the investments into the stacked pods etc. No, too dear. Those memes are an attempt to acculturate us to such mindless “iving” arrangementa, under the blatanly false pretences that we will be “cared for” by them. Sort of reminds me of some railroad cars they used to transport large numbers of people to a “better place” because “they” (the handlers and managers) “knew” what was best for them all.

      • He blowed his ears out back in the nam. He was artillery, back when hands to the head were ear pro.
        His messages, got to keep them short, and LOUD. Typos are from fingers that wont quit shaking.
        And, I always look at it this way. If NTexas got in a fight with Albert lj Hall I’d root for NTexas.

  15. “though she wants to do so in a less heavy-handed way that relies more on social workers than law enforcement…”

    so she wants to release a PR statement but do nothing

  17. It realloy does not matter a Monkeys Nuts how many extra police either of them hire because Policing in a Democracy depends on two thing above all other considerations, CONSENT of those Policed and INFORMATION from those Policed, and without either or both policing is increasingly difficult’ .
    Do a bit of reseach just as I have and you will come to the same conclusion. POLICE NUMBERS do LITTLE or NOTHING to STOP SHOOTINGS and neither do Long Prison Sentences or the Death Penalty. If they did the number of persons killed and injured in the USA would GO DOWN not UP
    I also find it difficult to believe that a supposedly responsible person had NOT ensured that HER firearms had been secured against oportunistic theft, and yet here she is talking as if GUN ownership gave her any sort of protection against a determined criminal at all. What is she? Some kind of handgun expert? I seriously doubt it and now she actually advertised herself as a prime target, Is she elfin MAD.
    The alternative is that she has REPLACED her guns, as any in the PRO-GUNNER in USA concerned for their personal safety would do and probably do automatiucally and her remarks are irrelevant as far as her personal safety is concerned.
    Does NOBODY in the USA use even a smidgen of CRITICAL and LOGICAL THINKING

    • WTF is IT rambling on about now. Your ignorance of our way of life is incomprehensible and for someone who is allegedly a citizen in a country that still supports a ceremonial family of freeloaders based on whose nut sack they came from to the tune of BILLIONS(?)/hundreds of BILLIONS(?) of dollars a year to question anyone’s CRITICAL/LOGICAL THINKING is absolutely laughable.

  18. “You can’t criminalize poverty,” she said.

    No one is trying to criminalise poverty.
    But certain behaviours have long been held to be illegal/criminal, for the general good of society (and/or certain members of the ruling class) and those continue to be illegal/criminal. However they have decided to hold “poverty” as an exemption card.
    Meanwhile if I should wish to add on to MY home to accomodate more folks under MY roof, they’d surely come down upon me as a lawbreaker when I “forgot” to go pay their huge bribe and get their “permission” to make my dwelling larger without their control/input. Meanwhile, the “camps” are far less safe ,healthy, “beautiful” than the enlarged home I would like to have.

    Laws for me but not for them.

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